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Newtown families: Victims turn lobbyists

A group of experienced operators is guiding these families — to a degree that has irritated some pro-gun Republicans. An uber-strategist for the families is Ricki Seidman, a familiar face at the top levels of Democratic politics ever since she ran the Clinton-Gore campaign’s famous 1992 war room. Seidman, a senior principal with TSD Communications, was Vice President Joe Biden’s communications director during the 2008 general election, and helped the White House win confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotmayor.

Bennett’s Third Way connected the families with a lobbying firm, Mehlman Vogel Castagnetti, that set up more than 25 Hill meetings this week alone. And Lara Bergthold, a veteran of Democratic presidential campaigns now with Griffin, Schein in Los Angeles, is helping to manage the media onslaught.

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PODCAST: Gun control progress

The lobbying for about 15 families is being coordinated by Sandy Hook Promise, a nonprofit started in Newtown by community members. A smaller number of families is working separately with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s group, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, which has a harder edge than the Sandy Hook group. People working with the mayor’s group are more likely to say a relative was “murdered” than to say they were “lost.” The mayor’s group is pushing for a ban on assault weapons, while Sandy Hook Promise — which has a focus on mental health in addition to gun safety — has stopped short of that.

Seidman traveled to Edmond Town Hall in Newtown when seven of the families sat down with Scott Pelley of “60 Minutes” for a moving double segment last week, in which the relatives made the case for tougher gun laws. Faced with a flood of interview requests, Seidman felt comfortable going with Pelley because of the sensitivity of a piece he had done on the launch of Sandy Hook Promise as anchor of the “CBS Evening News.”

The families’ growing Washington finesse showed when Pelley asked Nelba Márquez-Greene — whose 6-year-old daughter, Ana, was lost in the shooting — whether she wanted to ban assault weapons. “At first, that was where my heart was,” she said. “I have since learned that it’s a more complex issue. … We’re looking for real change and common-sense solutions, not things that just sound good.”